Ghettos under the Nazis

During World War II, the Nazis established more than 400 ghettos for the purpose of isolating and controlling the Jews.

The Nazis ordered Jews to wear identifying badges or armbands with a yellow Star of David on them in the ghettos. Many Jews were also required to perform forced labor for the German Reich. The Nazi-appointed Jewish councils (Judenrat) and Jewish police maintained order within the ghettos and were forced by the Germans to facilitate deportations to the extermination camps.

The ghettos, however, were still full of life. Illegal activities, such as smuggling food or weapons, joining youth movements, or attending cultural events, often occurred without the approval of the Jewish councils (though in many cases the Jewish councils did in fact sponsor cultural activity).

Historian Emanuel Ringelblum, an inhabitant of the Warsaw ghetto, founded a clandestine organization that aimed to provide an accurate record of events taking place in the ghetto. Ringelblum's project came to be known as the Oneg Shabbat ("Joy of the Sabbath"). Oneg Shabbat records were hidden in a series of milk cans that were buried in various areas of the ghetto. While only a few of these milk cans were recovered after the war, they proved to be an invaluable source documenting life in the ghetto and German policy toward the Jews of Poland.

Between July and mid-September 1942, the Germans deported at least 300,000 Jews from the Warsaw ghetto. As a response to the deportations, several Jewish underground organizations created armed self-defense units known as the Jewish Fighting Organization (Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa or ZOB) and the Jewish Fighting Union (Zydowski Zwiazek Wojskowy or ZZW). The Germans intended to begin deporting the remaining Jews in the Warsaw ghetto on April 19, 1943, the eve of Passover. The renewal of deportations provoked an armed uprising within the ghetto.

Though organized military resistance was soon broken, individuals and small groups hid or fought the Germans--who had planned to liquidate the Warsaw ghetto in three days--holding out for a month, until May 16, 1943.The Warsaw ghetto uprising was the first urban uprising in German-occupied Europe. It was also the largest and most successful Jewish uprising during the war and, as such, has served as a symbol of Jewish resilience and resistance to Nazi persecution.

After the Warsaw ghetto uprising, revolts occurred in Vilna, Bialystok, Czestochowa, and in several smaller ghettos. In August 1944, the Nazis completed the destruction of the last major ghetto in Lodz. In contrast, in Hungary, ghettoization did not begin until the spring of 1944 after the German invasion and occupation of the country. In less than three months, the Hungarian police, in coordination with the Germans, deported nearly 440,000 Jews from ghettos in Hungary to extermination camps. The majority were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Susan D. Glazer is a graduate student in the Department of Comparative History at BrandeisUniversity. She is writing a dissertation about the activities of a German-Italian insurance organization during World War II.